b'to decorate whatever new homes we were occupying. There werecommunity offers an opportunity to educate through the arts and deliver candle holders and whirligigs made from reclaimed aluminum cans,experiences that are not always available in formalized school settings, vases made from old books and magazines, and patchwork quilts madesuch as developing critical life skills, social/emotional development, civic from garments pulled out of donation boxes. Adults guided children inengagement, and enacting social change. Active community engagement fashioning each, providing an informal art education experience and anthrough art allows youth to become socially conscious and engaged opportunity for them to weave in a bit of creativity of their own. Throughentrepreneurs who bridge economic and cultural differences.the arts, we fashioned our community, and it was one of the thingsWhen people in communities become involved in formal and informal integral to keeping us together as we moved from place to place.art education, they develop a vested interest in preserving a place and Education provides opportunities for communities to develop andcultivating its development for future generations. Art education supports grow through the interchange of ideas. Experiences offered by arta sense of ownership or connection to the sites, people, spaces, and education build community. Students of all levels are communityculture that comprises a communitys sense of identity. Engaging through members, people, neighbors, family, and leaders. Art builds communityartistic and creative endeavors helps build relationships between people by providing spaces that promote constructive interaction amongand their communities become a better place to live, work and visit. people and enable them to experience the transformative power of theResidents take ownership and responsibility for their community and the arts through community-driven public arts events, museum educationalareas it inhabits, helping foster relationships with their community and experiences, formalized art education, or informal arts practices.each other.Wherever creative and artistic interchanges occur among communities, they provide connections between people that can lead to collective civic awareness and action, from providing equity to addressingA community full of art is a community full of environmental change or opportunities for healing, either physicalhope for the future.healing or community healing. Art education also provides opportunities to include younger generations in active participation or mindfulness about the communities in which they live. Creative experiences where innovative idea exchanges enable young people to participate as meaningful contributors to their communitys social, environmental, civic, and economic development. Engaging young people has the potential to bring more adults to join in, acting as mentors and coaches and supporting programs that advocate for art education, specifically when tied to the community. Many older community members are eagerandrs peraltato share their historical knowledge and cultural memories about theAndrs Peralta is Associate Professor in Art Education at Texas Tech University. He has taught community. Getting more people involved intergenerationally meansArt, ELL, and Spanish in public schools and has been an educator since 1996. Through lenses of post-humanisms and feminist new materialisms, his work in research and art-making focus more interchanges of ideas about how things are and how things couldon futurism concerning the intersections of trans*identities, technologies, constructions, and be might help improve the conditions of their communities.perceptions of self through social media.As art educators, we have the opportunity and responsibility to support students in their endeavors by encouraging young people todawn stieneckerbring the unique problem-solving skills art provides. Bringing art into theDawn Stienecker, PhD, is an art educator with over 15 years of experience who has taught in range of settings from community environments to private and public-school classrooms, working with early childhood learners to university and graduate level students. She seeks to understand dynamic facets of educational interactions in and beyond the classroom and in informal learning situations. Her research interests are in the ways informal research approaches can be implemented in formal research projects that demonstrate both praxis and critical investigation.TRENDS // PAGE 10PAGE 11 // TRENDS'